Wow look who finally decided to update this thing! I'm so sorry for disappearing for so long- my computer has been a bit of a dick lately and keeps crashing, so keeping it on for long enough to write has been pretty difficult! But I'm back again with the next installment of trash, and hopefully I'll be able to get another chapter written pretty soon! Just as a note, this chapter is set maybe about three weeks after the previous one, and since the video explaining their relationship, Dipper and Bill have probably filmed quite a few videos together. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this!
Chapter Thirteen
Dipper was awoken by the sound of glass shattering.
He sat straight upright in bed, throwing the covers away from where they were tangled around his arms, and flicked the light on, panic shaking away the bleariness of sleep from his limbs as he saw a jagged hole smashed into the window of the room he was sleeping in. Swinging his legs out, putting on his glasses, he stepped over towards the window, careful not to stand on the shards of glass that scattered across the floorboard. He looked down to spot a rock, sitting amongst the splinters, evidently the implement used to break the window. Leaning forwards, he peered out of the Mystery Shack, the faint glow of the sun as it began to push its was above the horizon indicating that it was far too early in the morning to be awake, never mind dealing with broken windows.
"Sorry! I think I threw it a bit too hard!" Dipper blinked down at the figure standing on the ground, looking up at him sheepishly.
"Bill, what the fuck?!" The blonde had the mIndscape mask balanced on top of his head, and was grinning, raising a hand to wave cheerily at Dipper.
"I had to wake you up some way, didn't I?" Dipper shook his head, wincing slightly as he peeled his hands away from the windowsill, a spike of glass dropping from where it had stabbed into his palm. He reached for his phone, and let out a loud, grumbling sigh.
"Bill, It's five am. You really didn't need to wake me up." He paused, looking down at the Youtuber again. "Why do you have your mask on?"
"Observant as ever, Pine Tree!" He pulled the edge of the mask, tilting it down over his eyes. "We're going shopping together, and I'm going to film stuff and upload it! I'm pretty sure the internet will throw itself off a cliff if we don't make another video together- They all pretty much had an aneurism after the last one." Bill's words brought Dipper back to memories of the last video they had filmed together; a Nerf war that had ended in a trip to A&E after Bill accidentally slammed a cupboard door on Dipper's arm.
"I don't see why that would involve you waking me up at stupid o'clock in the morning." Bill flipped the mask back up on top of his head, pushing his blonde curls away from his forehead with it.
"Well, I did some thinking, and I figured that we could prevent people from figuring out that I live here in Gravity Falls by going shopping somewhere that's at least a few hours drive away from here." He raised a hand to his chin, suddenly deep in thought. "Mind you though, they might be expecting that, so if we did go somewhere close, then that might make them all rule out Gravity falls completely because they would never think that I would film a video somewhere near where I live…" He trailed away, glancing off to the side, eyebrows furrowed as he muttered to himself. He dismissed whatever he was considering with a sharp shake of his head. "Nah, I'm overthinking this." He perked back up again, wide grin flashing back into place. "So, are you coming or not? I mean, it's not like I'm giving you a choice, but still." Dipper sighed, knowing that there was no point in disagreeing with the enthusiastic Youtuber.
"Give me five minutes to get changed." Bill's grin widened even further, and Dipper was certain that it couldn't be natural for someone to be able to smile that much.
"Brilliant! I'm going to need you to drive us there, just thought I should mention. I don't have a car, and even if I did, I can't see shit in this mask, so I'd probably rack up a pretty high death count by the time we reached the shops." Dipper sighed again, glancing once more at the shattered window. He didn't want to think about how much it would cost to repair. Picking up a book, he propped it up to cover the hole in the glass, before calling down to Bill.
"You owe me a coffee."
Bill refused outright to stop at the Gravity Falls Starbucks along the way, so Dipper ended up sitting in the front of the car, a cheap gas station coffee in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, Bill sat next to him, watching the GPS on his phone, his feet propped up on the dashboard. When Dipper had emerged from the Mystery Shack and headed over to the car, the blonde had insisted on vocalising his need to call shotgun, despite the fact that nobody else was around to sit there other than him. When Dipper had questioned him, he had shrugged it off as habit, making an offhand comment about him and William constantly fighting over who got to sit in the front of the car on family trips.
Admittedly, Dipper found it unusual to imagine Bill being part of a normal family, doing normal family things- all prior stories he had been told by the blonde had either been about how much of an asshole his parents were, or about times when he had done some pretty destructive stuff; setting fire to the curtains, hoarding dead mice in a shoebox under his bed, pulling a light fitting out of the ceiling by trying to swing on it.
He was only made aware of the fact that he had completely spaced out when Bill reached over and plugged his phone into the AUX input of the car, setting some music to play. Dipper immediately recognised the opening notes of Disco Girl playing out into the car, and turned to Bill, who shot him a smug grin from out of the side of the mask in return.
"You listen to BABBA?" Dipper questioned him, and the blonde laughed in response.
"No, but I know you do." He spotted the confused expression on the brunet's face, and elaborated. "I spotted a shitload of their CDs on your bookshelves, so I downloaded some tracks by them."
"You know, I'm not sure whether I should be flattered that you noticed something like that, or find it creepy as fuck that you were looking through my bookshelves. Those CDs were well hidden." Bill shrugged.
"Well, I could always just put some of my music on if it-" Dipper cut him off.
"No, there's no way I'm spending another two hours listening to your weird ass music." He gripped the steering wheel, the sky above them turning shades of milky blue as the sun began to rise. Bill began to sing along to the lyrics, glancing over as Dipper sunk into the car seat, scrunching up his nose in distaste.
"C'mon Pine Tree, you know you want to sing along!" Bill was evidently smirking under the mask he had pulled over his face as he launched into the chorus of the song. "Disco Girl, Coming through, That girl is youuu!" He grinned and continued to sing, placing his arms behind his head and leaning back in the seat. Dipper tried to dismiss the fact that the blonde was actually a decent singer, not wanting to give him too much credit. The brunet only allowed himself to hum along quietly to the song, tapping his fingertips against the steering wheel.
Half an hour later, the two of them were cruising down the road at high speed, the windows rolled down so that anyone they passed could hear them both singing.
They pulled into the shopping center car park after two and a half hours of driving, and the moment they had parked, they both stumbled out, shaking out their legs to remove the stiffness that had developed from sitting still for so long. Bill flipped out his camera again, having brought it out multiple times already on the journey there, shooting short video clips of the two of them singing obnoxiously along to unnecessarily loud music, of Dipper drinking his coffee, of the sunrise as the scenery rolled past them. He propped the camera up on the top of the car, setting it to record, pulling out a sheet of crumpled paper from his pocket as he did so.
"Okay, so this isn't just going to be shopping for normal stuff- I asked some of my friends to send me some stuff for us to find and buy, so this is probably going to end up getting pretty weird, judging by the sort of people I spend my time talking to," He grinned behind the mask. "Yeah, you freaks know who you are." He applied the term 'freaks' in an affectionate manner.
Dipper took the sheet of paper out of Bill's hands, scanning over it. Bill leaned over his shoulder to read it as well, swinging an arm around the brunet to steady himself as he did so. He let out a loud obnoxious laugh as he reached an item halfway down the list.
"Okay, Pyronica, I know it was you that decided to add 'hot pink lingerie' to the list of stuff we had to find." Bill collected the camera, and glanced back at the first item on the list. "Duct Tape, that one should be easy."
The two of them traipsed around the shopping center for at least an hour, gradually accumulating a bag full of increasingly strange objects- an electric whisk, a box of light bulbs, a kitchen knife, a four pack of beer, condoms, an eraser in the shape of a dog, a toy crossbow and, of course, hot pink lingerie, as requested, acquiring which had involved the cashier asking if Bill was purchasing it for a girlfriend, and Bill responding with: "No, it's for me." before walking out of the shop in a sweep of obnoxious laughter and glitter.
"Holy shit."
An awed voice sounded behind Dipper as he begrudgingly pushed a trolley, which Bill had decided to sit in, around the largest food store they could find, the Youtuber's high heels kicking out one end of the trolley, holding the camera languidly in one hand as they scoured the store for macaroons. The blonde and the brunet both looked around to see a group of three teenagers, staring towards them with a look of slight wonder in their eyes. "You're mIndscape, right?"
"Hey, Pine Tree, they recognised me first, do I get extra points for that?"
Bill handled the majority of the conversation with the group, and Dipper allowed himself to tune out, leaning his arms against the trolley, glancing towards Bill. The Youtuber was wearing high heels, shorts and an obnoxious yellow sweater vest, his hair brushed through with glitter, his voice muffled by the mask, yet still held its obnoxious, self-assertive tone, everything about him loud, bold and generally unnecessary, and Dipper found himself wondering how he had even managed to put up with Bill, never mind end up in a relationship with him. It was a mystery to him, how loud comments about the possible ways in which the universe could end and 3am texts about the scientific value of deer teeth could cause such a warm feeling of affection inside of him. He blinked, and shook his head, cursing himself once again for acting like the cliche, lovesick characters that he always tried to avoid in his writing.
"Onwards, my loyal steed!" The brunet was jolted free from his thoughts once again as Bill tugged on his wrist, the group having dispersed and moved on. The Youtuber pointed down the aisle, kicking his feet slightly. "Come on, we need to get those macaroons."
Another hour passed, and the two of them found themselves at the door to the music shop of the shopping center, having been instructed to find a book of BABBA sheet music. Dipper had a suspicion that Bill had been the one to contribute that idea to the list. The blonde had a slight nostalgic look to him as he stepped into the music shop, his hand pulling away from where he had been holding onto Dipper's wrist.
"You go and check over there for the music, I'll look over here." Dipper found himself standing alone in the doorway to the music shop, the camera held in one hand, Bill having darted off to the other side of the shop. Shaking his head slightly, the brunet headed over to the sheet music to search for the specified item.
He found it within a few minutes, pulling the book of music down off the shelf it was displayed on, tucking it under his arm to obscure the cover of it so nobody would think he was voluntarily buying a BABBA music book (definitely not, when would he ever do something like that. The brunet tried to dismiss the knowledge of the copy of the exact same book of music that was positioned on one of the bookshelves back in the Mystery Shack.).
He headed back over to the side of the shop that Bill had disappeared into, picking his way through the guitar section and into the place where pianos were stored. As he made his way into that section of the store, he began to pick up the light sound of someone playing a melody on one of the pianos towards the back of the section. A brief scan of the area confirmed his suspicions; Bill was sat with the mask still covering his face, playing out a quiet tune and singing along, his foot tapping along to create a beat for himself to follow. Dipper made his way closer, moving so that the blonde wouldn't see him, starting up a recording on the camera, partially for blackmail material, and partially because whatever Bill was playing sounded really fucking good.
"...Don't know where, don't know when! Oh, I know we'll meet again, some sunny day!" Dipper recognized the lyrics to what the Youtuber was singing as he got closer towards him. He stood and listened for a while, observing the precise way that Bill pressed out chords and melodies from the piano, the way his voice was high-pitched and a little strange, but still sounded unfairly good. Waiting for the song to finish, the brunet spoke up from where he stood behind Bill.
"I didn't know you could play the piano." Bill jumped slightly and whirled around, letting out a relieved breath as he saw it was only Dipper who was standing behind him.
"I learned it a little while ago- I haven't played it in a really long time though, so I don't really remember much." He glanced up and caught sight of the camera that Dipper still had angled towards him. "Traitor."
"If you're thinking about getting me to delete the recording, then don't even try. This is perfect blackmail material." From the way the blonde sat and looked up at him, Dipper could tell that he would be smirking behind the mask he was wearing. The smirk was confirmed, as Bill reached up and pushed the mask up his face a little way, and leaned up, pulling Dipper into a kiss. The brunet could feel the Youtuber grinning against his own lips, and, as Bill's hands made their way over to the camera, evidently assuming that Dipper was distracted enough, he pulled it out of his reach, stepping back and displaying a look of mock disappointment.
"I told you, don't even try." Bill pulled the mask back down, folding his arms childishly.
"Fine- if you get to tell people about the piano thing, then I get to tell everyone about how much you love BABBA." The blonde's entire posture called out smugness, his words dripping with it. There was a long pause between them.
"Okay, now you're the traitor."
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Also, I just want to say a huge thankyou to everyone who has commented, read or left favourites on this- seriously, all of it means so much to me! And, a final thing, I'm sad to announce that, after this chapter, there are only two more chapters left to go of this fanfiction before it's finished. Don't worry though, I'm definitely not going to stop writing for this trash ship any time soon- I do have other fanfictions planned that should be released very soon after this one is finished! Once again, thankyou so so much for reading!